Nineties 'nesters' boost the how-to shelter titles

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Sept 1, 1992 by Lisa E. Phillips

Trend watchers predicted the nineties would be the decade of nesters - young couples staying at home and starting families. Luckily for Hachette Magazines, which purchased Home from Knapp Communications in April 1991, that prognostication seems to be coming true. After two years of declining advertising numbers, the magazine appears to have reversed the trend, while for some competitors, especially the high-end, fantasy shelter books like Architectural Digest and Metropolitan Home, the boomers are turning into busters.

Home, positioned within the shelter category as a remodeling/redecorating title, saw 1992 ad pages through June hit 321, according to Publishers Information Bureau, an increase of 9.4 percent compared to the first six months of 1991. But ad revenues for the same period show an 11.4 percent decline, to $8.3 million, because of different methods in accounting and reporting between Knapp and Hachette, says Home and Elle Decor publisher John Miller III. Last year and in 1990 under Los Angeles-based Knapp, Home was generally down in ad pages and revenue.

Home's recent success comes from "a combination of things," Miller says. Gale Steves remains editor since the Knapp days, but the magazine's design has been fine-tuned, mostly through the typefaces. Also, "some people's attitudes have changed," he adds. "The eighties were about conspicuous consumption; the nineties are more home-oriented. That benefits Home. We give people ideas they can use," Miller says.

Another boost, Miller notes, has come from the ability to sell Home in conjunction with Elle Decor and Woman's Day. About 10 percent of this year's ad growth comes from group sales buys, he estimates.

Although the title dropped to a 10-times-per-year frequency this year,. "we did more pages in the July/August issue [71 pages] this year than we did in two issues last year [56, total]," Miller says.

Other home magazines are riding the nesting wave, too. The New York Times Co. Magazine Group's Decorating Remodeling, on an eight-times-a-year frequency, has seen ad pages rise 17.9 percent, to 226, in the first six months of this year, and ad revenues gain 27.8 percent, to $6.6 million.

Shattered dreams

At the high end of the shelter category, however, titles like Metropolitan Home and Architectural Digest have been hit by a decline in the furniture category. "Home furnishings [as a category] is dying," says Met Home publisher Steve Burzon. Some of the slack, he says, is being picked up by the beauty industry, automotive and liquor advertisers. Hachette's Miller says his company's high-end shelter title, three-year-old Elle Decor, is recovering from a critical reaction in the ad community and press to the announcement last summer that it was reducing its frequency to six times a year in January from a 10-time frequency. In general, though, the same change in attitudes that benefits the how-to shelter titles is hurting high-style books, "The category is in trouble." Burzon says, "so there's a share battle going on."